


Scylla and Charybdis

by Lirazel



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-09
Updated: 2010-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 00:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirazel/pseuds/Lirazel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s caught in between guilt and the righteous anger of the betrayed, and it’s a toss-up as to which one will win at any given moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scylla and Charybdis

_She’s caught in between guilt and the righteous anger of the betrayed, and it’s a toss-up as to which one will win at any given moment._

 _Magic doesn’t clarify: it muddies the waters, and she can’t help but long for the days before the supernatural crept into her life and started sucking everything good and simple right out of Mystic Falls._

\--

Bennett blood runs strong, stronger than she could have imagined just a few months ago, and she finds that _protect family_ is the sound of her heartbeat. Emily felt it, and Grams, and Bonnie feels it too, that steady thrum of protective instinct, a weighty reminder each time she reaches out to brush against the magic. She wonders about Emily: wonders if she performed some kind of spell that would bind all of the Bennett women to the mission of preservation, but she rejects the idea. More likely, blood and magic just remember; the memory of the price Emily paid echoing across the generations.

 _Protect family_ : that’s what’s driving her when she summons the wind and douses the lights and creates her little smoke-and-mirrors show for the benefit of Elena and the Salvatore brothers.

Elena probably thinks that it was some sort of misguided vengeance, tricking the Salvatores to pay them back for killing Grams like that ( _they drained her of her life just as surely as if they’d drained her blood_ ). But that isn’t it at all.

Elena’s always been part of her family, her sister in all the ways that counted and a few that didn’t, and _protect family_ means protecting her sister from anything that threatens her, even if that thing is Elena herself ( >o?what is it about those brothers that has Elena so captivated? They blind her, wrapping her in darkness so that she can’t see what she’s doing to herself by choosing them).

Elena doesn’t know what’s to come, but Bonnie does, and it’s not clairvoyance, not this time: she’s touched the vampires, she’s touched death. And it is cold and slimy, harsh and horrible, ravenously hungry, and it will never stop. Even if Stefan loves Elena, even if Damon is stumbling towards something like caring, they can never not be who they are. Sooner or later the dam will break and hungry death will come pouring out, a deluge that will sweep Elena away and crush her against the rocks ( _and take all of Mystic Falls with her_ ).

Bonnie can’t let that happen.

( _Protect family._ )

\--

And so she does something she swore she never would: she lies to her best friend ( _sister_ ).

( _Betray her now and save her, or betray her by standing silently by as she destroys herself and takes the town along with her._

 _There was never really a choice, was there?_ )

\--

She doesn’t expect Elena to ever understand, but she did it to protect her.

( _That doesn’t make it any easier to live with._ )


End file.
